Trump's education secretary to expand rights for students accused of sexual assault

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Donald Trump’s education secretary will narrow the government’s scope of what is considered sexual harassment and expand rights for students accused of sexual assault in a new series of rules for universities.

Betsy DeVos was reportedly preparing to release the final regulations of her new policies for college campuses before the New Year, which critics say will make it more difficult to combat sexual assault at universities nationwide.

The education secretary previously released a version of the proposals last year to a backlash from sexual assault awareness advocates who criticised key elements of the rules.

Ms Devos’ description of sexual assault in the new rules are far less strict than Obama-era guidelines that described harassment as “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature”.

The new rules instead describe sexual harassment as “unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex that is so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it denies a person access to the school’s education program or activity”.

The rules would be legally binding, going a step further than the guidelines released under former President Barack Obama, which aimed to provide protections for victims of sexual assault on the nation’s campuses and elsewhere affiliated with universities.

While the Obama-era protections included provisions to protect students who experienced assault on sites not necessarily controlled or owned by the university, including fraternity houses, the previously released proposal by Ms DeVos appeared to limit the scope of assault to having exclusively occurred within programmes and activities run by the school.

The language of that portion of the new rules will be different from the previously released version, the Washington Post reported, citing people familiar with the proposal.

Still, the new rules will allow for sexual assault victims accusing other students to be cross-examined, another contentious element of the proposal.

High-profile Democrats have come out in opposition to the latest efforts by Ms DeVos to transform the way the nation’s universities handle assault cases.

2020 hopeful and former Vice President Joe Biden tweeted during the weekend: “Our students and educators cannot afford four more years of Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos.”

Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts senator and another leading 2020 Democrat, has vowed to hire someone with experience teaching to serve as the next education secretary if elected.

However, some supporters of the new rules told the newspaper that cross-examination was an effective method in uncovering the truth in sexual assault cases.

“Particularly in sexual misconduct cases, there often are no witnesses, and the decision turns on the credibility of the two parties,” Samantha Harris, vice president for procedural advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, told the Washington Post.

She added: “There really is no substitute for cross-examination in allowing the fact finder or the adjudicator to judge the credibility of the parties and witnesses.”